Leon left for LA tonight. From the little garden in my mom’s backyard, I watched him go. Every strand of my being all but wanted to run after him and confess.

As he stepped away, I could only stare at his back, feeling as if my happiness was being slowly robbed away from me. At that very moment, I thought, I hated those shoes he was wearing because they took my Leon away from me. I swore there would come a time that I would snatch them from him and burn them to ashes. But it wasn’t the shoes’ fault. It was the universe’. And mine.

For the last time, I took his picture, making sure that even if my brain crashed again like it did before, I would have a backup for all the memories I might lose. It would be painful. Regardless, I would not have changed anything if I had the chance.

I had to let go. No matter how willing he was to stay by my side, risking his future and his lifelong dream in the process, I knew it wasn’t going to work out between us. He had to move on with his life. While I, from the other side of the world, would have to fight an uncertain but inevitable battle for mine. My only wish was that he wouldn’t have to witness every pain and suffering and waste his life looking at me with pity.

Having this kind of affliction made me think a lot. The hardest part of having amnesia wasn’t the pain of not remembering. How could a person grieve for something he didn’t know he had in the first place? It was knowing that the people around you, people you love the most, are hurting because they remember everything, up to the last unpleasant detail, knowing that they would have to eventually narrate everything you had forgotten and let you relive the pain.

“Sarah,” a voice said, simultaneous with the snap of fingers in front of my face. “You ready?” It was Myrna—a nurse I had known for many years now—with a worried look on her face.

Inhaling deeply, I nodded.

“Relax,” Myrna smiled, sticking a needle into the port in the tubing, just above my hand. “I’m going to inject the contrast medium now.”

A tingling, burning sensation crept from the vein at the back of my hand and up to my arm, making me aware that I was holding onto the edge of the bed so hard it hurt. Slowly, I lay down, the cold from the synthetic leather covering the bed seeping through the thin fabric of my hospital gown. I held my breath, feeling a shiver run down my spine as the bed slowly slid into a cylindrical contraption with a faint mechanical sound.

Inside the tube, there was nothing to hear but the muffled whirrs and the rhythmic beeps of the MRI. It made me claustrophobic and all the while, I kept reminding myself that it was a fear I didn’t have.

“Okay, Sarah,” said another voice, this time, a male. The technician, I supposed. “You will hear a few loud noises as we’re taking images of your internal organs, but it’s perfectly normal. So I would have to ask you to stay still for a few minutes.”

I knew the drill. I had done this test a couple of times before. Still, it was nerve-racking. “Okay,” I answered through clenched teeth to stop them from rattling.

Closing my eyes, I struggled to visualize. Happy thoughts. Happy thoughts. All I could think of was Leon and I, sitting in our favorite spot at Gil’s—the one at the far corner, near the window looking to the road. There, we would stay for hours, talking and laughing, and eating fries without ketchup. He hates ketchup. And tea. He hates tea. These little things, I was glad I could remember, because in this temporary and indefinite existence of mine, they to me were an anchor. A reminder that I had someone waiting for me to fix myself and when that time comes that I’m all well, I could come to his arms running.

On the table, he would place his hand over mine and draw never-ending circles at the back of my hand with his finger. At times, when I had been feeling especially inquisitive (resentful) because he had been gone for weeks, I wouldn’t stop myself from asking about his work. Of course, he would give me this lopsided smile that was slightly annoying, but still managed to make my heart stop.

“Really?” That was what he would say, playfully raising a brow and I would have been even more flustered. “Do you really want to hear what I did in LA? The parties I’d been to. The pretty girls I’d met?”

My throat would clench at the thought of that, resorting to a silence because otherwise, I would cry.

Laughing that carefree laugh, he would then coax me into a bet where I would have to count all the red cars that passed and he, the blue ones. The one who counted the more number of cars would win and the loser would have to be the slave for the day. More often than not, I would lose because he has better eyesight and reflexes than me. Unfair, yes. But I would have been alright with it.

As embarrassing as it was, I had done a few dozens of his odd requests, ranging from sitting on his lap in public while feeding him to long walks in the park where we would sit for hours in silence while watching the blue of the skies fade into indigo and orange. He had always insisted that I rest my head on his shoulder, complaining when I would stretch from a cramp.

At the end of the day, it was almost certain that he would say, “Let’s go, Sarah. I’ll walk you home,” offering his hand to me.

However, at this point, I couldn’t reach his hand as he drifted farther and farther away from me, disappearing without a trace.

***

“Sarah?” A hand stroked the fringe of my hair away from my brows.

Slowly and unwillingly, I opened my eyes, only to be welcomed by the glaring bright light from the white ceiling. I blinked, letting my eyes adjust to the lighting and that was when I saw my mother peering down at me. Concern was painted on the gentle features of her pale face.

“How are you feeling, princess?” At the other side of my bed was my father, his wavy hair disheveled as if he had twisted and turned in bed all night.

When I tried to answer, a hoarse moan escaped my throat at the pain of my lips cracking. Wincing, I mumbled a weak “Mmmkay…”

As I took everything in—the white walls, the bed with the side rails and the sheets that smelled of antiseptic detergent—I realized I was still in the hospital. Just as the confusion set in, I had a hollow feeling in my chest.

“You had a seizure during the MRI,” I heard Emma say.

Blankly, I nodded, more preoccupied with the picture burned in my mind; of Leon walking out of my mother’s garden. In order for me to suppress my tears, I forced the corners of my lips to pull up while whispering as much as my rusty voice would allow. “Again?”

Emma looked like she wanted to blubber right then and there. Noticing this, my dad Winfred placed a big hand over hers and for a brief instance, I could tell they were having a meaningful conversation just by looking at each other.

“It’s a… tumor,” I rasped, my lips cracking upon an attempt to grin. Still, I kept my face as calm as possible. “It takes up… space. Scrunching… my brain. My left frontal… lobe. Seizures… are to be… expected.”

Dad sniffed, placing a hand on my shoulder as he tried to plaster a smile on his face. “When you say that like you’re reading it from an encyclopedia, it’s actually a little funny.”

Mom pressed a hand over her mouth and turned away. By the way her shoulders shook, there was no denying that she was crying.

“D-don’t cry… Mom.” My lips were quivering and I didn’t know how long I could keep my defenses up. “T-that’s why… I’m telling you. I—I want to do the… craniotomy.”

That was the first time I saw Emma Littman-Byrnes cry like a five-year old. At that very moment, I thought, I didn’t want to see Mom like that, but she kept crying every time she talked to me.

So I pretended not to see the tears, the way she and Dad would murmur in a corner while I, in my nonsensical serenity would write letters. I wrote and wrote while my hands still worked for I knew there would come a time when they would eventually fail me. I wrote of happy things and of things I wanted to do. I wrote of the good and the wonderful but never the bad. I wrote everything up to the littlest detail so that I was sure he would know that I never stopped thinking about him. Down to the last letter—one where I would say my goodbyes in case I didn’t make it—I told him that I was happy and left out all the things that I wished to not see, things I wanted to go away.

One day, I woke up blind. I just got what I wished for. But it kept getting worse.

The next day, I had a seizure again. Then, I didn’t wake up.

For a long time, I kept dreaming about things. Glimpses of either my lost memories or products of my imagination, because I was desperate to feel something. Anything. I very much wanted to remember. Yet, despite the thousands of pictures flashing before my eyes, I couldn’t make sense of them. I couldn’t recognize them as if they weren’t my own.

I never knew what time it was. I stopped trying to figure that out for what seemed like a long time ago. All I knew was this quiet mellow song that kept playing again and again. It was Elton John’s song which my father used to sing to me when I was a little girl. Only, it wasn’t my father’s voice I was hearing. I couldn’t remember to whom it belonged, but I wanted to wake up to find out. It seemed that this voice, this strange person was the only thing that kept my heart going.

***

The next time I opened my eyes, I was no one. I had no name. No words. No memories. Nothing. I couldn’t even move. I could see, but I couldn’t. I was alive. Yet I wasn’t.

My first light came upon hearing a song from the program Becky was watching on TV.

“Listen, Sarah. It’s a song by Four-Oh-Dee,” trilled she in her high-pitched voice. It was then that her face, her long blond hair came to focus.

Her name just popped into my head. “B-becky.”

For the first time, I began to see things. I mean to really see things. To realize that I was part of the world and not just a spectator who did not comprehend anything. To remember what little scraps of memory left in my refurbished brain. Thousands of tiny puzzle pieces waiting to be placed where they were supposed to go, beginning from learning my name to wiggling my toes.

It didn’t all come back at once. Some of it didn’t come back at all. Like the fifth number after the decimal point of the value of pi. Or Newton’s Third Law of Motion, if there was any at all. Like why I was always wondering why Matthew Adams always visited me, why he was suddenly nice to me, why I wasn’t angry at him for bullying me all throughout high school.

If Becky hadn’t told me everything, I wouldn’t have a clue about it.

But some things just stuck, like the pair of blue eyes I had always wanted to see. That boy who always rub the tip of his brow when he feels hesitant, who kicks the ground whenever he is angry. That angelic voice. That smile. I couldn’t forget them even if I wanted to.

Back then, I thought memories were like watching TV. It was like I was not there. I was just watching the “other me” do what I did. Doctors called it detachment. I called it utter disarray.

They said I should look more at myself in the mirror so I could identify myself as my self. They were sadists.

What kind of psychiatrists tells a teenager (at least, one with the emotional quotient of a teenager) to look at the extremely horrible, chewed-up-by-a-shark-then-spit-out-into-a-shredder version of herself? My hair had all been clipped close to my head. My scalp was stitched in a dozen different directions. I would say I was glad to have finally lost so many pounds, but I looked like the bald version of the Corpse Bride.

So much for boosting my self-image.

I had to rebuild myself from scratch. Literally.

It was devastating. Still, I faced every day with a determination I didn’t know I had. Every time my parents or my friends look at me with sorry eyes, resentment welled within me. But I didn’t stop. It only fueled my resolve to prove them wrong. I could be normal again. I could be me again.

I could remember a few times when I would breakdown and cry behind everybody’s back. Not only once did I think of giving up while I wallowed in my self-pity. My only consolation was that he wasn’t there to see how pathetic I had become.

And for my own sanity, I wished that he was contented, that he was somehow becoming what he’s supposed to be.

***

Trying to learn how to walk was a struggle. Running was a revelation.

As I slowly gain back some of the memories, I also developed aspirations. New ideas. New ambitions. New dreams. And old ones too.

Photography took most of my time.

Besides the fact the he gave me this camera, I found comfort in the sense of permanence every photo seemed to give off. It wouldn’t matter if I forgot. They would always be there to remind me of the things that escaped me.

For once in the longest time, I felt peace. It was short-lived but worthwhile, because I was aware that underneath the distraction my bucket list had given me, I must eventually face the inevitable. Once I was able to fix myself, I had to fix my life, my bonds and most especially, my heart.

I could remember the first time I saw him after my brain surgery. It was like seeing him for the first time all over again. I wanted to run to him, to throw my arms around him. Still, I couldn’t help but fester in my neurotic thoughts, these illogical works of paranoia nagging from the backseat of my brain.

What if he didn’t recognize me anymore? If I said hi, and he just ignored me? What if he was angry and that anger had already erased any love he had for me in the past?

Too much time had passed and many things had happened without my knowing.

So there I stayed at the back of the crowd, watching everyone express their excitement, rubbing elbows with girls who worship the ground he walked on. I tried to smile, hoping the several yards of distance will allow me to send my love to him in ways I could. But when he sang that song—that song that he wrote for me—with melancholy in his blue eyes, all I could do was press my palm over my mouth to muffle the whimpers.

Sarah… can you just smile for me?

Forever, would you belong to me?

And when they all left, I stood in a corner watching him stare at the piece of paper in front of him before pouring his soul into it. Half of me wanted to show myself, to talk to him. Half of me was petrified, terrified out of my wits at the mere thought of showing this ‘other self’ to him. I wasn’t the Sarah he used to know. Heck, I wasn’t the Sarah I used to know.

I stood there shaking, holding my breath until I realized that he was gone, leaving a note that kept screaming in my head how I torn him apart. And so, I went back to the place were supposedly all my answers were now buried forever. For hours and hours, I glared at the small tombstone and screamed and cried about how it had ruined everything.

I believed I would just need to fix myself. But I can never be fixed. I was and ever will be damaged.

***

I woke up to the sound of him breathing through his slightly open mouth and I couldn’t even begin to describe the happiness—no, it was joy—just to be looking at his sleeping face. Last night was the best of all, because I had the chance to be with him even just for a little while.

Automatically, my hand moved to touch his face; one of the little things I didn’t have the right to do. If I was in a parallel universe and I wasn’t more of a liability than I already was, I might have wished for this moment to never end. I might have wished to wake up next to him, for his beautiful face to be the first thing I would see every morning for the rest of my life. But no. I couldn’t do that to him.

And so I kissed him gently before I left and ran away. But not without taking those shoes I hated since that day he walked out of my mother’s garden. I threw them into the ocean hoping they would never find their way back to him again.

Last week, we were walking on Gloucester beach—him and I—and I spotted one of those shoes washed up on the shore. He saw it, picked it up and said, “Didn’t you steal these before?”

Wordlessly, I snatched the shoe and threw it back to the sea with everything I had. “Yeah. Those were your ‘Leaving Shoes’. I hope you get eaten by Tiger Sharks!!!”

It took a little while for that to sink in to him before his melodic laughter seemed to overwhelm the sound of the waves. I stood there, staring at him like the gawky imbecile that I am, remembering only to breathe when my lungs started aching for air.

All of a sudden, he pulled me to him, draping an arm over my nape and another behind my back. Slowly, I felt my feet leave the ground. His breaths played on my neck as he laughed and laughed until he could laugh no more.

Finally, he whispered, “Don’t worry. No shoe can make me walk away from you ever again.”

***

I press my lips into a thin line and restrain myself. Still, I could not help but smile to myself in the mirror.

“What’s so funny, Sarah?” Becky says, appearing from behind me in the mirror.

Instinctively, I place a gloved hand on my lips.

Becky swats it away and glares at me. “Sarah, you’re ruining your make-up! Just stay still for a few minutes, okay?”

The door opens, spewing Moira in an aquamarine fish tail gown. She even lets her hair down this time, which is a first. “It’s starting. Come on, Becky!” She sounds excited too, which is another first.

“Oh-em-gee!” Becky frantically examines herself in the mirror. “Do I look okay? I think my falsies are falling off!”

I roll my eyes and look at her from head to toe. Her blond hair looks perfect in a Bohemian crown updo, accented by little baby blue flowers matching her baby dress. I pick up the bouquet of Blue Flag Iris and Aster and hand it to her.

“There,” I say smiling. “Perfect.”

She hugs me, kisses me on the cheek and disappears into the door.

The smile lingers on my face even as she left and it’s a smile I haven’t had for ages. My father comes in and embraces me.

“You look dashing in a tux, Dad,” I compliment him.

He twirls me around and eyes at me. “You’re the most beautiful girl on earth today, princess.”

“Just today?” I tease.

“And tomorrow. But the day after tomorrow, your mom gets the title again, okay?”

“Okay.”

He takes a long deep breath. “Ready?”

I nod, my face starting to hurt with all the smiling.

Rather theatrically, he offers me his arm and I take it. Then, I gather the long tangle of my frilly skirt and head to the next chapter of my life.

----END----
Really. This is it.

Might do a NATHAN Book though. Let's see what happens.

Please check out

Other works by Shim Simplina:

Reapers Chronicles
Reapers-Thirteen Brothers (published)
Reapers-The First Familiar (completed)
Reapers-Master of Souls

Nerd Diaries:
How To Date a Nerd (completed)

Filipino Stories:
31 Days to Die
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